Interdisciplinary Psychology:

Sue Wagaman

January 19, 2008

Activity One 

Positive Psychology Response Paper 

Activity One:  Elevator Ride (going up) Lifting my mood:  Following are two strategies I choose to try this week.  These are “Going Up” Strategies for lifting my mood and increasing my positive emotions.Background: This week has been very stressful.  I am home-schooling our youngest, 11 year old daughter, this year; I am finishing my last 9 credits to graduate from college; we are building a house and an office building (both needed much attention this week); I am memorizing and learning 4 exercise programs (for my job as a group fitness instructor) to be ready for rehearsals this week and launches January 26; and, of course, I still have to fit in my “normal” life and activities. Therefore, these activities were very applicable for me.

Strategy One-Aerobic exercise:  With the stresses in my life at a high level I decided to “try-out” the elevator ride activity by choosing the activity of step aerobics as my “reliever” of anxiety.  I was concerned that this activity would not work for me as a stress reducer since my stress and anxiety was much higher than normal and it is my job to teach this class.  Sometimes just preparing for it (about an hour practicing before class) can be overwhelming and I toyed with the idea of trying to get a substitute to teach for me so that I could get all my other tasks done that day.  I changed my mind when I remembered how great I usually feel after class.  Therefore, I chose to teach my “Body Step” class Monday morning, January 14. 

Outcome:  During the hour class I noticed that I began to feel better, in fact just walking in the room and greeting my participants made my mood lift.  By the end of class I felt much more cheerful and also more hopeful that I could get all my tasks done.  I formulated a plan of action to get all my duties completed this next week (while I was showering after class) and the schedule worked for a few days. 

Within five days of my new schedule I was once again stressed over all I had to do.  This came about because there were some added projects and unforeseen problems that arose (computer messed up…again, kids who needed me for unforeseen projects, friends who had need of support, activities that took longer to accomplish).  Again, I exercised and again it helped. In fact, as I am writing this I realize that even without much sleep for two

nights I have accomplished more than I usually do…I sort of have an adrenaline rush.  I am actually almost ahead of schedule. 

Conclusions/insights:  I have realized that the emotional benefits of exercise do not stay with me day after day.  I have to exercise every day to feel the benefits although the immediate “rush” helps to push me through the day.  I am peppier and less sluggish.  I

 feel more inspired to get my work done and I have more hope that I can be successful and accomplish the tasks.  Ultimately, for me, the euphoria leaves…in about 2 hours.  It was helpful to me this week, though, since I did finish many of my projects.  Even though the stress returned later, for a short time the anxiety diminished, I felt energized and I had a more positive outlook toward finishing all my tasks.  As a side note, I did a better job on some of my projects than I expected.  This seems to go along with the studies on “Flow”.  I feel I was in my zone during my classes and the outcome seems to go along with how the book describes this.

Obstacles:  The main obstacle in my way was my negative self-talk, “You can’t get everything done, you will not do a good job at all these tasks, you will fail, you will be miserable this week.”  In fact, the negative self-talk almost caused me not to teach my classes this week and therefore, miss the benefits of exercise in lowering my anxiety and boosting my mood.  The negative self-talk lessened immediately during exercise and lasted a few hours afterwards, as mentioned above. 

Another obstacle is when I am quite stressed I can’t seem to concentrate enough to accomplish much.  I gravitate towards watching TV, reading a book, taking a nap and just wanting to be alone.  I want to give up.  Exercising helped me to be more energetic and hopeful and that in turn helped to encourage me to follow through with my duties.

Strategy two-time with family:  I choose to pick spending time with family and romance as my second strategy to effective self-regulation.  During this same period of time mentioned above, my husband and I had our usual “date night”.  I really did not want to go because I was so busy and I felt the need to get these tasks done and off my mind. I toyed with the idea of canceling and rescheduling but instead I thought better of it and decided to keep our date night.  I reminded myself that our marriage relationship is a priority.

Outcome: It was a very relaxing and fun time with my husband and it was good just to talk and reconnect.  In fact, I know it helped just to complain about all the things I had to do and have him be sympathetic.  It also helped me to listen to him and focus on someone other than myself.  Plus it took me away from the stress for a little while and replaced it with fun and relaxation.  This in turn helped me to better concentrate when I did return to the work.

Observations:  An interesting fact that I have noticed this week (actually I have been noticing it more and more in the last few years) is if I put what is really important in life (friends, family, God, health, fun, etc) as one of my priorities usually I am better able to fit all my many tasks and responsibilities in better AND to feel less guilt about it. 

Sometimes I have to put some of my priorities aside for a short time in order to accomplish another goal that is important to me but overall I usually try to remember what is truly meaningful and important in my life and do those things that will help encourage growth in those areas.  I also realize that I need to leave space throughout my week for down time, and for all those unforeseen “things” that come my way each week.   

Obstacles:  The biggest obstacles to spending time with those I love is believing that I can put it off until “tomorrow” when I will have more time.  Unfortunately, when tomorrow comes I still have much to do and it can be a terrible downhill slide with no end in sight.  Therefore, I have to remind myself constantly to take the time to interact with my friends and family and not put work and other tasks as number one very often.

Activity One Continued:  Elevator Ride (going down)

Limiting my Rumination: 

Following are two strategies I chose to try this week to slow down my cognitive processes and physiological arousal.

I choose to focus on lowering my negative, incessant self-talk this week.

Outcome:  This self-talk really helped me to remember what the “truth” really is.  I was able to let go of worry about the future and focus on what has happened to me in the past in similar situations.  Finally, this exercise helped me to remember what is truly important to me in my life which is in part, being a loving friend and loving my family. The positive self-talk helped me to let go of my anxiety and helped me remember that my work and responsibilities are only one part of my life but not the whole picture.  Therefore, I reasoned, if I don’t finish my work or I don’t do as well as I hope, it is only one part of my life…not the whole.

Obstacles:  The main obstacle to positive self-talk is not believing it and replacing it again with negative self-talk.  To combat this I did even more self-talk until I believed it.  It helped to find examples in the past where I have been successful in surmounting similar problems.

Strategy Two-Lowering Physiological Arousal through prayer:

This week when I was experiencing all of the stress I stopped my activity, slowed down and took some time to pray.  

Outcome:  This calmed my mind and helped me to focus on what I needed to do in a more peaceful manner instead of the hectic pace I had been using. After this, I became  more creative in how I would get things done and more positive and energetic concerning my tasks.  While I was praying, sitting still and thinking I once again became reconnected to my values and remembered that there is a bigger picture for my life and for this world than just my “little” stresses at this moment in time.

Observations: Taking time to pray always helps me but it is a struggle to actually sit still long enough to do so. Taking time to pray and worship God is something I have to continually remind myself to take time to do.  Just like the other positive aspects in my life, I often veer towards taking it for granted.

One other activity that has helped somewhat is relaxation.  I teach a class that has a relaxation portion at the end for about 8 minutes.  This can be very helpful for me since I can try to empty my mind of negative thoughts, replace them with positive ones, calm down and become “still”, which is hard for me.  I can even use this time to pray silently.  Since I am the teacher in the class it is not as relaxing as it could be, even so, I still feel the benefits of these few minutes of quiet time.      

All in all, I realized that it is much easier for me to become negative rather then positive when I am overwhelmed and stressed.  Therefore, I need to be fully conscious of this tendency and as soon as I am aware of these emotions I will try and counteract it with positive activities, positive self-talk and de-stressors such as prayer and relaxation.  Secondly, I would like to try and reduce my stress by limiting my activities and responsibilities when possible.